Forum OpenACS Development: POST (Portlet Open Source Trading)

Hi to all,

Just wondering if OpenACS community plans to engage into new POST (Portlet Open-Source Trading) initiative. http://portlet-opensrc.sourceforge.net/ or if there are any possible channels for engagement for sites deploying OpenACS.

Wishes,

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Posted by Venkatesh Goteti on
Volodi, I am not sure about how useful the POST initiative is for OpenACS as it in effect is for companies developing components using Java, and usable by vendors who deploy solutions integrating Java components. The component based approach is pretty common already (www.componentsource.com) where companies instead of developing software from the scratch integrate components that could be bought off the shelf. But it's pretty much within the .NET, Java lobbies....each with their own set of Lego blocks :)

Sun, Plumtree, Bea et al seem what you could say yay...Java lobby :). And, this just seems an initiative of theirs to definine a set of Java APIs for portal and portlet vendors who build their applications/portlets(as you see them). And they are supporting this with their resources. For example, even Microsoft does this by providing resources and standards for anyone to develop .NET components, that could be integrated into their supported portal frameworks.

In a way, incorrectly speaking, OpenACS has people developing new packages (kinda like components?...I am not sure it's the right comparison, anyone can correct me) and it does have guidelines for people who want to develop new package on how to do the same. Having said so, there are many standards and open initiatives that people in the community are looking at leaning towards. For example SCORM for all the learning stuff et al...

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Posted by Volodja Vorobey on
Hi Venki and all,

Thank you for reply. It actually pushed me to think about portlets’ exchange within sites deploying OpenACS-based solutions. By portlets I do not mean simply technology but rather content. Some sort of library of portlets ready to be embedded in other organizations’ platforms would be a good idea. There are some extremely easy to make like “Asia-Pacific News”, “Oanda Exchange Rate calculator” etc. but some organization-specific portlets could be a good way to cross-fertilize platforms. For instance, if Greenpeace would have news portlet “Environmental news” and Heidelberg University would have portlet “New publications from Heidelberg” and AIESEC would be able to add it to some relevant communities at www.aiesec.net, - it would be additional benefit for all organizations deploying OpenACS. It could also help in marketing efforts for other organizations and help developers to add content to their platforms, not only work with the code. Of course, it is subject to organizations’ information-related policies.

Maybe there is already such repository of portlets that I am not aware of, would be great to here about it,

Wishes from Brussels,

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Posted by Dave Bauer on
The portlets they are talking about would be useful for sharing data between web services. Another use would be to share data from legacy systems.

In general though, for sydicating content from one web site to another, at least when the content is not secret, RSS works well.

That said, the first portlet on the POST site is an RSS portlet.